“Pick up my room,” said Gypsy.
“But what had that to do with stringing the beads?”
“Why, I—don’t know exactly. I took out my drawer to fix it up, and my beads were all in a muss, and so I thought I’d sort them, and then I forgot.”
“I see several things in the room that want putting in order before a little box of beads,” said Mrs. Breynton, with a smile that was half amused, half sorrowful. Gypsy cast a deprecating glance around the room, and into her mother’s face.
“Oh, I did mean to shut the wardrobe door, and I thought I’d taken the broom down stairs as much as could be, but that everlasting Tom had to go and—— Oh dear! did you ever see anything so funny in all your life?” And Gypsy looked at the image, and broke into one of her rippling laughs.
“It is really a serious matter, Gypsy,” said Mrs. Breynton, looking somewhat troubled at the laugh.
“I know it,” said Gypsy, sobering down, “and I came up-stairs on purpose to put everything to rights, and then I was going to live like other people, and keep my stockings darned, and—then I had to go head first into a box of beads, and that was the end of me. It’s always so.”
“You know, Gypsy, it is one of the signs of a lady to keep one’s room in order; I’ve told you so many times.”
“I know it,” said Gypsy, forlornly; “don’t you remember when I was a little bit of a thing, my telling you that I guessed God made a mistake when he made me, and put in some ginger-beer somehow, that was always going off? It’s pretty much so; the cork’s always coming out at the wrong time.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Breynton, with a smile, “I’m glad you’re trying afresh to hammer it in. Pick up the beads, and tear down the image, and go to work with a little system. You’ll be surprised to find how fast the room will come to order.”